Process of gauging leather



Patented @een 5.3, l,

i MARTIN H. REYMOND, OF BNGHAMTON, NEVLV YRK.

recense or entferne rinarnnn.

Application filed August l1, 1923..` Serial No. 491,633.

To all whom may conce/m.' f

Be it knovvn that l, MARTIN H. RnyiroND, a citizen of the United States, residing Binghamton, in the county of Broome and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful Process of Gauging Leather, of Which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to measuring the cutting value of leather in advance of cutting. More particularly, it relates to detinitely predetermining the effect on thel cutting value of the many variables that exists in leather, such as size of hide, shapeof hide, raggedness of edge, tears, ysurface marks, brands, scars, grubs, cuts, creases,"` holes, grain texture, body texture, thickness, grain imperfections, color imperfections, linish imperfections, etc. The principal object of this invention is to provide a convenient and economical processk for definitely predetermining for any givenv supply ofleather, for a given purpose, what its cutting value is compared tok any other given supply of leather, taking into account the above mentioned variables.

Another object is to provide a particular form of apparatus whereby this process may be advantageously carried out.

ltwvould of course be possible to prede-r termine what a given supply of leather would cut for by laying oli" on the surface the product it is intended to cut fronr it. But this Would not only involve a prohibitive amount of labor, but would not be'. definite in that the varying human skill of the man'doing the laying out would give varying results.

Previous to this invention, 'Where any ath tempt has been made to predetermine the cutting quality of leather on a practical scale, this has been done by a general appraisal and sorting process, rlhis usually consists of classifying each hide asgrade No. i, No. 2, No. 3, etc. by a glance over its surface, whereupon it is thrown upon a No. 1, No. 2, No. 3,-etc. pile respectively. This rives very unreliable results. No tivo sorters will sort exactlv alike, the human equation being a large iactor. Nor Will the same sorter sort alike on different occasions. For example, given poor leather to sort, his No; l leather Will usually be a poorer grade than when sorting better leather. Further,'not only is such sorting unreliable, but the segregationA of good leather from poor leather yoften results in less economical cutting. n For eXanr ple,.in the cutting of shoes, the cutters re-k ceiving the better end of the leather have an excess' of clean leather which they must cut up into smallfparts such as tips, stays, etc. which they could `iust as Well have obtained from poorer stock. y0n the other hand the cutters Areceiving the poorer end of the leather, in order to get the required numb er of large shoe parts, must use an excessive amount of leather, leaving a lot of available small part stock unutilized.

n contrast With the previous state of the art 'such as described, l attain the object of my invention, the determination of the comparativev cutting quality of any supply leather, Without sorting, and Wit-hout needing any knowledge of the product to be cut beyond knowing what imperfections, if any, may satisfactorily appear in the nished product. Further, the human equation is eliminated in the result, the process being governed throughout by absolutely rigid conditions. ln general terms the process consists of: indicating over the surface ofthe leather small equal-sized equally-spaced areas; inspecting these small areas individually to determine Whether they contain in any portion of their scope any imperfections such as previously 4mentioned which are not allowable in the linished product; counting the number of such small areas which contain no such imperfections; and, from the ratio of this number of small areas to the total area of the leather` they were obtained from, obtaining a measure of the cutting quality of the leather, or what may be termed the quality number` of the leather.

The accompanying `drawing illustrates 4a particular application of this process. Figure l is a plan view of the apparatus, and Figure 2 is a side view. Similar numerals in the two views refer to similar parts.

lThe leather to be gauged l, is shown par tially intercepted between cylinder 2 and flexible perforated bandv 3. This band is perforated with.V equal-sized holes at equal distances over its surface, as shown. The `man doing the grading stands atthe front of cylinder 2 to inspect the various small areas. `The arrow 4 indicates his approximate angle of vision. After hehasinspected the areas `he can conveniently see, he turns the tivo cylinders .2 and 5, together with band 3, and leather l,-by means of Wheel G, bringing the nent region of small areas into convenieut inspection position. The cylinder 2 has a soft rubber exterior 7, which serves tivo purposes. In the first place, it causes leather l to be snugly pressed against band 3 at every point, and in the second place it permits bending in the leather to aid in detecting spongy portions.

Assuming that upon inspection by this method, the following observations were obtained for the piece of leather l:

Number of Whole areas containing no imperfections not allowable in the product Total area of the piece of'leather leather, would have to be expressed in half square feet, and Would be QXF. This would make the quality number A/QXF,

lf the area of the leather is not otherwise available, it may be obtained by counting the number of imperfect circles and the number of partial circles as Well as the number of yperfect circles. Thus:

Let number of perfect circleszA. Let number of imperfect circlesz. Let number of partial circleszC. The partial circles will averageA to half a circle each` and the quality number will be:

which will be thesaine value as if determined as described in the directly precetb This quality number mav be obtained for an individual piece of leather or for a rpile of hides. The larger the amount of leather inspected the more accurate this quality number will be, the errors balancing out according to the laiv of averages. For any considerable quantity of leather, the possible error is negligible. There will be no appreciable variation in quality numbers obtained from successive gaugings on the same lot of leather.

A better understanding of the aber-e described quality number maybe obtained by considering it from a slightly different viewpoint. Assume a given quantity of leather of known quality number. imagine this leather to be cut up into small squares of the same area as the circles in band 3. Now suppose these squares are inspected for imperfections which may not appear in the product. Suppose the squares containing no such imperfections are sorted into one pile, and counted. New suppose the ratio of the total area of these parts to the total area of the original. leather is determined. This result will be identical with the quality number previously obtained. ThusWhat is done in determining the quality number of leather is to determine, Without actually cutting the leather, what the utilization' ivould be if it were cut up mechanically under certain specific conditions` instead of in the usual manner of working around imperfections. illhile the cutting quality of the leather as actually cut, i. e. Working around imperfections, does not vary directly with this quality number` it bears a certain relation to it. This relation may be determined by experiment for any given set of conditions, such size of holes used in band 3, shape and size of pattern to be eut, kind of leather to be cut, etc.

Holes in band 3 should preferably be of a size comparable with the size of the parts to be cut, although .uo very close ratio need be adhered to. For example, a J4- square foot hole may be used to gauge leather for cutting into parts which are only {L- square foot in area Without causing any large error.

Tt should be noted that considerable modifications are possible in the round, equalsized, equally-spaced small areas shown in the drawing. Areas of different shape and differently spaced might be used. t would also be possible to use more than one size of area.; for example, alternate larger and smaller areas might be used.. The only basic requirementis that they be regular in order of size and shape, and in spacing. The use of round areas of equal size and equally spaced is, however. a .u|.ele1ieil form. In the first place flefects are more readily observedr in a figure containing no corners, the circle being the simplest ligure of that kind. Tn the second place the spacing shown, Where only part of the surface is visible, Lis of advantage in making each small area a segregated unit in as far as inspection is concerned, eliminating the psychological effect sometimes obtained in inspecting tivo directly adjacent areas of imagining` the extension in prol'iibitive de gree of a defect existing in one of these areas into the other. In the third place the inspection of only half of the surface reduces the Work of inspection about one half, at the saine time vgiving sufficiently accurate results for practical purposes. Tu the fourth place the inspection of only a part of the surface makes possible a simpler instgess mechanical design of apparatus for indieating the desiredareas on theleather than if the entire surface had to be inspected.v

A further use. of this process exists, where parts of two differentk qualities are cut from the same leather, in indicating what proportion of lirstquality andsecond quality parts should be produced. F or example, assume that two qualities of shoes, each ywith delinite requirements from the standpoint of allowable imperfections of the many :kinds mentioned in the early part of this specifi cation, are to be cut from a given supply of leather. Equal-sized, equally-spaced areas are indicated over the surface. These areas are inspected as to whether they contain any imperfections not allowable in first quality slices, and those which do are inspected as to whether they contain any imperfections not allowable in second quality shoes. The number of areas suitable to each quality of shoes is counted. rlhe relative pso-y portion of these two quantities provides an index number as to the proportion of .first and second quality part-s which should be obtained.

While the particular processes described very well illustrate bot-h the principle and uses of this invention, the full scope of the invention has more fully and concisely been embodied in the appended claims.

l claim as my invention:

l. The process of measuring the cutting quality of leather, consisting of indicating over its surface regularly-spaced areas of regular size and regular shape, inspecting these lareas individually to determine which do not contain any imperfections not allowable in a product of fixed standard that may be cut from said leather', counting the number of such areas, and computing the ratio of this number of areas with the total area of said leather.

5?.. The process rif-determining the cutting quality of a given supply of leather in the form of a quality number, consisting` of indicating over the surface of the leather equal-sized equally-spaced areas, inspecting these areas individually to determine which do not contain any imperfections not allo.w able in the product to be cut, counting the number of such areas, and computing the ratio of this number of areas to the total area of said given supply of leather.

rlhe process of determining` the cutting quality of a given supply of leather of unknown area in the Iform of a quality number, consisting of indicating over the surface of the leather equal-sizedv equallyspaced areas, inspecting these areas individually to determine which do not contain any imperfections not allowable in the product to be cut, counting the number of'such areas, counting the number of areas which do contain such imperfections, counting the kually the number of partial areas, and computing the ratio of thev number/fof areascontaining no such imperfections to the sum of the areas containing yno such imperfections the areas containing 'such` imperfections and half the partial areas. f

d, The processof determining the cutting quality of a given 'supply'of leather in the form cfa qualitynumber, consisting of in- `sertingit undera screen perforated withy these areas individually to determine which .i

do not contain any imperfections not allowablein the product to be cut, counting the number of such areas, and computing the ratio of this number of areas to the total area of said given supply of leather.

6. rl`he process of determining the cutting quality of a given supply of leather in the form of a quality number, consist-ing of in-` sorting the leather between an elastic surface and a screen perforated with round equal-sized equally-spaced holes, inspecting individually cated overthe surface of the leather to determine which do not contain any imperfections not allowable in the product to be cut, counting the number of such areas, and computing the rat-io of this number of areas to the total area of said given supply of leather.

7. The process of determining the cutting quality of a given supply of leather in the forni ofa quality-number, consisting of inserting it between. a cylinder and a exible band perforated with round equal-sized equally-spaced holes, inspecting individsmall round areas thus indicated over the surface of the leather to determine which do not contain any imperfections not allowable in the product to be cut, counting the ynumber of such areas, computing the ratio of this number of areas to the total area of said given supply of leather.

8. rEhe process of determining in the form of an indexnumber the relative proportion of two products of different quality requirements -to be cut from a given supply of leather, consisting of indicating over the surface of the leather equal-sized equally spaced areas, inspecting these areas individually to determinewhich do not contain any imperfections ynot allowable in the first the small round areas thus indiquality product, inspecting those 'areas Vwhich do contain sucli imperfections to deterinine Wliicli do not contain any imperfections not allowable in tlie second quality product, counting the number of areas entirely suitable to tlie irst qualit-j,T product, vcounting tlie number of areas not entirel7 suitable tc "rlie first quality product but 'entirel",7 suitable to lie second qualitycproduct, ccinputing the ratio Orsa-id number 01p4 first quality areas and said nunier of sec# ond quality areas.

9. The process of measuring the cutting quality of leather, consisting of indicating over its surface regularly spaced areas or' equal size and similar shape, inspecting these areas individually to determine which come up to soi'ne Fixed standard as to imperfectionsv 'allowable therein, counting the number ofsuch areas that conie up to such standard lend computing the ratio of tliis number of areas with tlie'total area of said leather.

August 9, 1921; 

